


Closing Time

by mosylu



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Boss/Employee Relationship, F/M, Pining, except not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:00:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26005333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosylu/pseuds/mosylu
Summary: It's his last day as a Jitters employee, and his last day working with his manager Caitlin. Which means it's also his last chance to tell her how he feels, and see if she feels the same.Written for Killervibe Week 2020, the Coffee Shop AU theme.
Relationships: Cisco Ramon/Caitlin Snow
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21
Collections: Killervibedaily Events





	Closing Time

Cisco shut the door behind the last wifi hound, locked it, and raised both fists in the air. “And we’re done!”

Done for the night, done for the pay period, done forever. In two days, he’d be starting his grad program at the university and a TA-ship with it, and he’d never have to make another latte unless it was for himself.

“Not quite,” his manager said. “We’ve still got to finish the closing.”

“But done with customers,” he said, coming around the counter. He started to clean the espresso machine, singing, “No more frothers, no more cards, no more Karens’ dirty looks -” He paused. “Huh, you got anything that rhymes?”

Caitlin, already pulling the drawer, rolled her eyes at him and turned to go into the office where she would count the money and deposit it in the safe. Also her last time. 

Cisco hit the button for the cleaning cycle, shut off the canned Jitters-approved music on the overhead speakers, and pulled out his phone. “Requests?” he called into the office.

“You pick!” she called back, as she always did.

He decided it was an old-school cheesy hair band kind of night and put on Aerosmith as he started emptying the dishwasher, stacking all the cups and plates up for the next morning. 

He liked closing with Caitlin, because she always had them do all the little tasks and chores way before closing. He knew some of the other baristas bitched and moaned, saying there was plenty of time to take out the trash or do the pastry inventory after they were closed and she was just cracking the whip because she could. But Caitlin always got them out on time and also never left anything undone for the openers if she could help it. 

Also, it didn’t hurt that he was kind of head-over-heels in love with her.

“ - jonesin’ on love, yeah, I got the disease,” he sang as he wiped down the table where the last wifi user had been sitting, dropping crumbs into his keyboard until the bitter end. “Falling in love is so hard on the kneeeeeees -”

She was pretty and smart - she was going to med school! How hot was that? - and kind of funny, once you got her talking. In his year behind the counter, every single one of his favorite shifts had been with her. He’d even agreed to work closing on Saturday nights because that was her closing night, and nobody else ever wanted that shift so it was always just them hanging out as he cracked jokes and told stories and made up alternate lyrics to the music on the loudspeaker and generally acted like a third-grader trying to get the attention of his first crush.

Not that she’d ever reciprocated. Oh, she was friendly enough, in her reserved way. But though she would banter with him if there was nobody in the store, she’d never flirted back or texted outside of work, even when he would shoot her a what’s-up every now and then to test the waters. She’d never even given him _the look_ when they were alone and the store was locked up and he’d just made her laugh, and … 

Clearly he was a fellow Jitters employee and nothing more. 

He sighed, tossing the cloth into the laundry bag. It was probably good they were both leaving. Unrequited love was probably great for radio hits, but terrible for his self-confidence. Maybe he’d get lucky and lock eyes with a hot fellow TA during orientation, and if he ever ran into Caitlin around campus, he could smile and catch up without that tinge of longing pressing on his chest.

He checked the bathrooms, just in case that one last “no, I’ll be five minutes, I really need the bathroom” guy had left a horrible present behind. 

Luckily, they were spick and span. Caitlin had cleaned them a couple of hours ago, so he could probably eat off the floors. He narrowed his eyes at the toilet paper holders and opened one. “For Chrissakes,” he muttered.

Caitlin was rolling coins when he knocked on the door jamb. “Hey, Charmin’ Hal hit us again,” he said. “I need the keys.”

She looked up. “What? When did he get in?” She handed him the key to the supply closet.

“Maybe when we had that drive-thru rush around nine? He got all three spare rolls." 

She shook her head. "What does he use them for?”

Cisco shrugged. “We don’t have to care in -” He checked his phone. “About thirteen minutes.”

By the time he’d replaced all the spare rolls, Caitlin was signing the deposit slip. “We good?” he asked.

“Just about. I have to lock up the safe. Can you grab the pastry cart?”

“On it.” He tossed her the keys to the supply closet, and she caught them. “Wooo!” he cheered. “A stellar catch from Snow on third!”

She smiled in a way that made his stomach all warm, but turned away and started gathering up all the stuff to go in the safe. He grabbed the cart and wheeled it out front to start filling the ruthlessly cleaned pastry case so it would be ready for the openers.

After a few moments, the safe thumped closed, the light in the office switched off, and she came out to help him with the last pastries. When they’d filled the case, she handed him a roll of bills, his share of the tip jar. “Oh, and this. It came on the truck today.”

It was an envelope with something stiff and plastic inside. He ripped it open and found a gold Jitters membership card. “What’s this? Some kind of comment on how much free coffee I drank in my tenure here?”

She smiled. “Every Jitters team member that leaves on good terms gets a lifetime membership in the loyalty program.” She nodded at the card. “You were here for more than a year so you get gold.”

And fifteen percent off Jitters drinks and food. “Nice!” Discounted caffeine was not to be sneezed at, especially in the program he was going into. “What’d you get? Titanium? Diamond-encrusted?”

“Managers get platinum,” she admitted.

“For the kind of crap you put up with, you should get free Jitters for life, not just twenty percent off,” he said. He’d personally seen her smack down entitled Karens, kick out jerks creeping on baristas, and call the cops on a dude who was flashing people in the drive-thru.

She shrugged. “It’s still a good deal.” She reached out and hit the lights, so the lobby went dim and quiet. 

More than once, he’d wondered what she would do if he leaned over and kissed her in the soft after-close darkness. The thought came up again. Why not? Last chance, right? She was so close he could smell the hazelnut syrup she’d spilled on her apron earlier. What if he just - 

But her silhouette had already turned and started walking to the back, and her voice floated to him. “Come on, let’s clock out.”

He cleared his throat. “Right. Yeah. Let’s do that.”

He’d cleaned out his tiny locker earlier, so all he had to do was whip off the apron and toss it in the laundry bag. Caitlin’s landed on top of it, and she picked up her purse and the bag of things from her own locker.

“Have you got everything?” she asked. “I signed my key back to Tina earlier, so I wouldn’t be able to get us back in.”

He patted his pockets. Wallet, keys, phone. “Got it all,” he said, grabbing the bag of stuff from his locker.

He clocked out, approved his time card, and then stepped back to let her do the same. The staff door shut behind them with a heavy, final thunk, the lock clicking. 

“End of an era,” he said. “The Cisco and Caitlin closing show is no more.”

“Yep,” she murmured.

They stood in the tiny parking lot, the lights spilling down to form a pool around them, keeping the darkness back. On the other side of the building, traffic rushed by.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets, suddenly awkward. “So, uh. This … this was cool. I liked working with you.”

“Me too.”

“Good luck with med school and all that. Maybe I’ll, um, I’ll see you around campus.”

“Probably not,” she said. “The med school is on the other end of campus from the engineering building.”

He looked at his shoes. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

“So maybe we should arrange to meet up sometime,” she said.

It took a moment for the words to percolate, and then he blinked at her. “To - ”

“Meet up,” she said again. “For, um, for coffee or something.”

Hang on, was this like a post-employment thing? Meet up with your manager afterward? To what, like, talk about work stuff? She was aware that they worked (had worked, past tense) at _Jitters,_ not a Fortune 500 company, right? 

“Sure,” he said slowly. 

She put her hands behind her back. “Only if you want. I know you’ll be busy.”

Something pinged in his brain. Maybe it was that bashful motion, maybe it was the angle of her chin as she looked away. Maybe it was the trace of a blush across her cheeks. 

He held up a hand. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

Her eyes went big, and her cheeks went pinker. She bit her lower lip. 

“Oh my god,” he said in wonderment. “You are. You’re asking me out.”

She looked utterly crestfallen for a split second, then rallied. “Okay, I can see I might have misinterpreted certain -”

He almost yelled, “I didn’t say no!”

They both goggled at each other for a moment.

“What are you saying then?”

“I - yeah, absolutely, yes, let’s -” Hook up? Date? Have a torrid love affair? Get married and have a succession of fat happy babies? Yes please, all of the above. “Let’s do that. But - you - you knew I liked you?”

“You were kind of flirty,” she said. 

“But you never - You acted like you weren’t even the tiniest bit interested!”

“Cisco, I was your manager up to three minutes ago! That’s like the definition of sexual harassment!”

“Not if I’m cool with it!”

“Okay, but if we’d started dating a year ago, every time I made a schedule, people would have said I was giving you more hours or better shifts or not making you do the icky jobs, even if it wasn’t true. You know they would’ve.”

“A year ago,” he said. “You’ve had the hots for me for a year?”

She primmed up her mouth. “As you well know, you’re very cute.”

He felt his grin spread all across his face. “Damn right I am. I’m such sizzlin’ hot stuff that you couldn’t wait three minutes after you were officially no longer my manager to hit on me.”

She went pink to her hairline. “I - I just - it seemed like a good -”

He almost collapsed into laughter. God, why had he never taken that into account? All his pining and longing and yearning, and he’d never once considered how conscientious Caitlin was. Of course she wouldn’t have acted like the other manager, Ralph, who was nice enough but went through the cute new baristas like a hot knife through butter. And yeah, people did say that about whatever newbie he was swapping spit with.

When Cisco had chortled himself into silence, she stood shaking her head. But not in a “I changed my mind, you’re a complete goober, no fat happy babies for us.” More like, “I knew what I was getting into and I still think you’re cute, God help me.” She had a little smile on her face.

He wheezed out a breath. “So,” he said. “We’re doing this?”

She nodded, and her smile widened. “Sounds like.”

“Just one request, okay?”

“What’s that?”

He reached out and took her hand. It slipped into his shyly, but she didn’t pull away. He said, “Let’s do Slurpees and mini-golf, or hit the pizza buffet, or something. Just, anything but coffee." 

FINIS


End file.
